The show did go on, despite a delay of more than an hour after threats that the cinema was mined and after 30 people who looked homeless – and who were carrying what turned out to be fake press accreditations – set off smoke bombs.
The disruptions came during the Sept. 27 screening of several short documentaries at Kyiv’s Kinopanorama cinema.
After the Soviet-style cinema got aired out, the Open Access project showed four movies – including ones about an Afghan war veteran, schools in Poltava Oblast and a Kyiv resident’s attempt to save a local landmark from redevelopment. A fifth one will be screened later.
But the show that provoked the disruptions, organizers believe, is a documentary on Mezhyhirya – the multimillion-dollar palatial mansion that somehow ended up in President Viktor Yanukovych’s hands after the state sold it.
“The organizers of Open Access movie screening assume that Ukrainian authorities might have something to do with disruptions during the film presentations, because it includes the documentary about Mezhyhirya. Civil activists and journalists ask Viktor Yanukovych to influence the situation,” according to their statement published on the Ukrainska Pravda website.
The 22-minute film called Mezhyhirya features the work of Serhiy Leshchenko, the Ukrainska Pravda journalist who has investigated the complex transactions involving Yanukovych’s estate.
The audience numbered several hundred people and packed the theater.
On Oct. 1, journalists filed a request to Yanukovych asking for additional safety measures during Open Access screenings. “Now it’s a high priority to guarantee the safety for our visitors, who want to get access to the movie screening and stay sane,” civil activist Svitlana Zalishchuk said.
Aksinia Kurina, a journalist who is the project’s producer, hopes to bring the documentaries to 10 more cities. “But now it’s going to be tough to negotiate with cinemas to screen it,” she said.
The same movies – packaged as a single “almanac” – were shown in March during Docudays, an annual international human rights documentary festival in Kyiv, and also other times during the year in 20 other Ukrainian cities.
Kurina initially had wanted to make a film about the “Stop Censorship!” movement. Then she shifted focus. Along with Zalishchuk and film director Volodymyr Tykhyy, they came up with the five films which took more than a year to produce.
“We managed to show that the law is a tool which can be used by ordinary people who don’t have much power or their own attorneys to defend the rights,” Kurina said.
The opening story, Mezhyhirya, shows Leshchenko trying to file numerous requests to find out how Yanukovych got control of the mansion from the state. He gets no answers.
“Volodymyr Tykhyy insisted on Leshchenko as the main character of the story,” Kurina added “And Leshchenko didn’t want to be filmed, actually, because of his shyness.”
The second movie shows a middle-aged veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan who has been waiting for an apartment for about 20 years, something he’s legally entitled to have. He sent information requests to the local government to find out when he could get a new apartment for his family. The response? He’s still 116th on the list, the same place that he was five years ago.
The third video tells about two schools in Poltava Oblast. The local government decided to close the older school, ostensibly because of lack of funding. But school activists began to investigate the case.
A fourth movie, called House with Chimeras, features native Kyivan Oleksandr Glukhov, who used to live on Mala Zhytomyrska Street in the city center. His residence was Murashko house, named after the famous Ukrainian artist Oleksandr Murashko (1875-1919) who lived there once. Authorities sold the building, but Glukhov’s family refused to move and were determined to preserve the city’s landmarks.
The fifth movie, Cornered, will be screened soon. Information can be found on the Open Access website http://www.vidkrytyi-dostup.com/home/. Cornered will be presented at the Leipzig International Festival for Documentary and Animated Films later this year.
Kyiv Post staff writer Olena Goncharova can be reached at [email protected].
